Once, when I was young, three friends of mine and I snuck over a fence into the local reservoir. While walking around it we discovered an old boat. Well, we, naturally, launched the leaky thang with two of us in it armed with our BB guns while two other guys hid behind trees on the shoreline with their BB guns. Once we got 100 feet or so out into the lake we all started shooting at each other. Actually, we in the boat had to spend half our time bailing water. Sounds like some fun, eh?

I was playing war with my buddies and at the time I was hiding on a 6ft tall storage shed. I thought I could walk across on an ajoining gate towards the fence nearby. I ended up falling down and landing on the top of my head. Age 9, and my first concussion.

Today or ever? Man, I did a lot of stupid things, but most of them involved lots of alcohol, so I can blame that.

For instance, I once threw a dart at a bartender in a little tavern in Saratoga Springs, New York. It was George Washington's birthday. After the dart sailed harmlessly wide of its mark and stuck in the wall behind him, the bartender shook his head and picked up the phone to call the cops, while I sauntered off to the bathroom, proclaiming to my buddy, "I'm gonna take a leak, then we'll ROLL." Somehow my buddy was able to talk the other patrons out of beating my ass while I used the facilities, and we walked out of the bar about 3 steps ahead of the authorities. And that was just the BEGINNING of that night, I'm not gonna take any more comment space with the rest.

I microwaved a bowl of rice.
I took the bowl of rice out of the microwave and stirred it with a fork.
I put the bowl back in the microwave for a few minutes.
I took the bowl out of the microwave and decided that the fork wasn't enough to stir it, so I put the fork in my mouth and covered the bowl with another bowl, upside down.
I shook the two bowls up and down.
I slammed the bowls into the fork and stabbed the four tines into the roof of my mouth.
In excruciating pain, I dropped (and broke) both bowls, yanked the fork out of my mouth, and stood there in shock as approximately the entire volume of blood in my body poured out of the holes in my palate onto the broken glass and rice on the floor.

Hmmm... probably getting an mba instead of going to law school. Now I spend every waking moment trying to devise a scheme whereby a person in his late 30's can quit working and go to law school whilst managing a wife, 2 kids, a mortgage and assorted other financial obligations.

I was at a fireworks stand one Fourth of July. As I was heading back to my car, I noticed that there was a dog going poop next to my car. I still have no idea why I did this, but I decided to throw a rock at the dog. I don't know, maybe I was afraid i'd step in crap or something. Anyway, I missed the dog by a mile, and the rock went right through the back window of my car. Shattered the whole window. I've been extra kind to all animals since then.

I was driving up to New York from Florida during college with a college friend. He lived in Virginia, so the plan was to drive straight through to Virginia, crash at his house for a few hours, and then drive solo the rest of the way to New York.

We were switching off the driving to Virginia part. At about 2 am, we were in Virginia, and he was driving. I had been dozing off. I woke up and realized we were going like 90 mph. In Virginia. Where the cops aren't known for looking past speeders. I asked him what he was doing. He said "Oh, I'm trying to lose the cop behind us."

Actually, he did manage to lose the cop. I still never let him drive my car again.

This isn't nearly as interesting as the other things that happened to my cars, but those were through no action of my own. Unless parking a car in a legitimate parking spot can be construed as being dumb. In which case, a tractor ran over my first car while I was perfectly legally parallel parked. And my second car was set on fire in a parking lot. I am still waiting to see what hideous fate befalls my third car, which I only dared to purchase a few months ago.

Spinning out on a deserted road at 3:30 AM while going 115 MPH in a very small convertible is up there. So is challenging a 6'4" guy on steroids when he shoved me out of his way in a bar, at which point he and his 6'4" friend (also on steroids) beat me savagely and threw me out the front door.

No, coolrob, it wasn't the Shamrock, this was 1982, I don't remember the name, but it was across the street from that Irish place that everyone raves about, but I never liked, the Parting GlassI think it was. This place was right on Broadway, between the T&L and Barclay's, which had been a bank and had the $1 Iced Tea Thursdays, when it was crawling with Skidmore chicks.

That's another dumb thing I did, I should have latched onto some crazy rich Skidmore girl and retired at 21 when I had the chance.

When I was a younger lad, I enjoyed hard liquor to the point I actually quit drinking it when I moved to CA.

Well one evening at my favorite bar, it was only myself, a buddy and the bartender. After several hours of doing shots and drinking beer, we had reached the point of when asked what we wanted, our reply was "surprise us".

After leaving said bar, I decided I wanted to visit a woman I was seeing. While running up the outside stairs to her 2nd floor apt, I was so drunk I pitched over the side of the railing. I woke 5 to 10 minutes later, facedown in rocks and broken glass. Apparently during my acrobatics over the railing, I had kicked out a 1st floor window and was laying in the broken glass. I pulled a couple of long shards out of my leg, scraped the rocks out of my forehead and proceeded back to my buddy's place. I showed up to work the next day covered in blood.

Now the reason this is the dumbest thing I've ever done, it that is it my boss's absolute favorite story to tell to just about anyone...the more important, the better. So not only was it stupid, it haunts me to this day.

During one late night party (the sun was actually back up again) I needed to take a leak. The facilities were already spoken for so I figured, Hey, it's 6:30 AM, I'll just climb out onto the balcony and wizz down into the ally. I was admiring the sunrise, not looking down, not paying much attention, drunk. Then I hear, below me:
Argh! you PIG! You PISSED ON MY BABY! From a woman pushing a carridge, who'd rounded the corner of the building, right into... well you get the idea.

Tried to explain the behaviour of an engineer (me) to a cop looking to arrest me. We were separated by the delusion that we shared a common language. I'm told that it's a frequent happening, cops don't listen engineer and engineers don't speak cop.

When (s)he asks "Would you like to explain", just say "Only through my lawyer" and then shut up. It will be a LOT cheaper that way, even if you do end up in cuffs for a while. The question really means "Would you like to dig the hole that you're in deeper, please?"

My most embarrasing home video:
http://www.laflamme.us/art/media/1/ISpy.mov

When I made it, I thought it was very funny -- funny enough to show to my boss, who had a hell of a sense of humor. Who played it again and again. Whenever I went to see him in his office. Again and again, with the speakers turned up.

skillzy, if I had a nickel for every Saratoga Springs bar I had been thrown out of, I'd have, uh... 20 cents.

At least I didn't throw some local guy through the front window of a bar like a friend of mine... Don't remember its name either, but it was a "Cheers" like bar so you had to walk down to get to it. This meant that when the guy got thrown through the glass, he dropped down three feet onto the table where I was trying to pick up the very same guy's Skidmore girlfriend. Only took $250 to get our friend bailed out, fortunately, mainly because we assured the owner that we'd pay for the repairs (Doubly fortunate, that the guy was a GE/Westinghouse guy not an officer or petty officer)

Driving 45 miles per hour down a country road in a Ford Pinto wagon (not the exploding kind). Climbed out of the drivers window, crawled over the top of the car and into the passenger window, while my buddy slide over into the driver's seat. I figure I've been living on borrowed time ever since.

Alexis, that reminds me of a story that I really wish someone could help me find again. It was about a guy who cashed one of those checks that you get in the mail as an advertisement. He documented the whole thing, and it was an amazing story. Anybody have any idea what I'm talking about?

#1. 15 or 16 years old, with a bunch of friends...we found an older guy we knew to buy us some beer. Gave him the money, drove him to the liquor store and waited in the car. He came out and as he started to hand us the beer, the cops came up and busted him for supplying liquor to minors. Before I could stop myself, I asked the cops..."Well, can we get our money back?"

#2. Summer, 1973. My boyfriend and I had stayed up all night long partying and had tickets to see Led Zepplin and The Tubes the next day at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. We decided to drop mescaline just so we could stay awake for the concert. What I remember of it was great, but the major sunburn I ended up with on my face and shoulders was not good at all.

oh I've got it. It was a Tuesday morning, the most beautiful day in a good long age, in 2001. I explained loudly to my colleagues--my increasingly anxious colleagues--on the newsroom floor that all the shit we were watching on TV was being blown way out of proportion. I explained coolly and ationally that the plane that flew into WTC1 a mile and half south was likely a turbo-pro flown by some rich zipperhead like JFK jr. For about three minutes I gave a concise lecture why as reporters leaping to conclusions or assuming the worst was a bad idea.

to prove the point, i called a good source who worked there. Couldn't raise him. With a bunch of reporters and editors milling around my desk because I was so certain, I called my sources wife , Ronnie.

She answered the phone and coolly told me (us) that she had to rush. Her husband of 40 years, Bobby, the head of the convertible bond brokerage desk at Cantor Fitzgerald, had just spoken to her. He said electrical equipment was melting from the heat and that they werent going to make it. He was going to go near a window to get air. she wished me the best and hung up. A couple of reporters just looked at me; the editors got the hell out of there.

Similar to Rod, when the planes hit and the towers were on fire, my boss (structural engineer) and I (fire protection system designer) reassured each other that the towers were going to be okay. The sprinkler system would handle the fire, and the structure would hold up, since it hadn't collapsed from the initial impact.

In an effort to reduce comment space, here they are in no particular order:

1. Showed up to a huge party with some friends, it sucked, so we decided to run eachother over with a car.
2. Rappelled out of the 6th floor of my college dorm. Cop: "WHAT are you doing?" Me: "Uh. Rappelling?"
3. Got hopelessly lost in the woods, had to spend the night.
4. Climbed to the roof of a stadium that was being built. When the cops came to get us, they opened the trap door leading to the roof while I was standing next to it. In a split second decision, I slammed the lid shut and stood on it just for good measure. I immediatley realized I was an idiot.
5. Hit the remote start button while the car was in gear. Had to sprint the thirty feet between the car and I, dove through the window, frantically stabbing the brake pedal with my hand while my feet were waving out the window.
6. Unashamedly admitting to every stupid thing I've ever done.